Nineteen years after his killing spree first began, a Dix Hills businessman is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in connection with three murders, according to officials. Christian Tarantino, who federal prosecutors said was both a successful owner of health clubs and the leader of an armed robbery crew, faces three life sentences when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in...

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Nineteen years after his killing spree first began, a Dix Hills businessman is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in connection with three murders, according to officials.

Christian Tarantino, who federal prosecutors said was both a successful owner of health clubs and the leader of an armed robbery crew, faces three life sentences when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in federal District Court in Central Islip.

Tarantino was convicted in 2011 of the 1994 murders of guard Julius Baumgardt, then 47, of Lindenhurst, during a Muttontown armored-car robbery and the murder of one of the robbery participants, Louis Dorval, 30, of Elmont and East Meadow.

According to court testimony, Tarantino feared that Dorval would become an informant.

In the 2011 federal trial, the jury deadlocked on whether Tarantino also was responsible for the 2003 killing of a third person, Vincent Gargiulo, 39, of Sunnyside, to try to cover up the Baumgardt and Dorval murders. Gargiulo was the brother-in-law of Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider.

Gargiulo, a longtime friend of Tarantino's who had broken with him in a business dispute, had secretly made a tape recording of Tarantino discussing the Baumgardt and Dorval killings. In an attempt to get $50,000, Gargiulo offered to sell the tape to either Tarantino or the FBI.

In May of 2012 he was retried and convicted of conspiring to kill Gargiulo, though acquitted of the actual murder. The conspiracy conviction also calls for a life sentence.

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